What games are you playing now?

Played Black Mirror for some 4-5 hours yesterday. It's been a LONG time since I played an adventure game for that long in one session.

I started this playthrough a long time ago - and I got stuck at one point, and I just left it.

Now, I'm the sort of person who can almost never remember the details of stories in games - simply because I've played literally thousands of them. They just don't stick - and I have to work at remembering even after only a few weeks after getting back to a savegame.

But, in this case - most everything is pretty clear, even after 6-12 months (I really don't remember when I began this playthrough).

There's something about this game that just feels perfect to my tastes in classic adventure games. It's just the right balance of NPC interaction, exploration and cerebral challenges. It's not a hard game - and I'd probably say it is on the easy side, but that suits me just fine.

The atmosphere is great and the story is really intriguing so far. I just reached Chapter 2 - and I look forward to getting back to it.

If you're into a really traditional point/click adventure with a good dose of gothic horror/mystery - I highly recommend this one. In terms of horror - it's not scary at all, but it does have a very foreboding atmosphere. But it's definitely more of a mystery and a nice slow burn experience.

I'm also back to playing Age of Conan. I was so bitterly disappointed upon release - because the game had such amazing potential and they squandered it. However, at this point - it's really feature rich and it retains perhaps the best combat system of any MMO - and some of the best visuals.

DArtagnan

Today and yesterday were the two free days I had since the end of summer. I decided to put them into Legend of Grimrock. I am now on level 9 and I can say that I probably didn't pick optimal characters. I have only human characters so I lack the advantage of having species bonuses. I decided out of a whim to go axes with my fighter and there haven't been that many axes around. The assassin's backstab is a bit hard to pull off considering it's worth. My two mages (earth/ice/spellcraft and air/fire/spellcraft) aren't as effective as I would have liked. But at least I have something up the sleeve for every foe I met so far.

-- Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

I'm in Episode 3 now of The Walking Dead, and I can see why this game has received so much attention. I've never had to make so many difficult choices in a game. Everything you do has consequences, and the story and characters are top notch.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
I am in the dragon part now, and I don't quite understand why people reacted so negatively to it

Same here. I thought it was pretty cool flying around as a dragon. However, I did have one problem with it. As a dragon, some NPCs (maybe all of them, not sure) would not appear while you were in your dragon form. So you'd have to land first to see if there were any NPCs in the area. The reason this was a problem for me is because I am a compulsive explorer. I HAVE to explore every nook and cranny. The game gives you tons of these nooks and crannies as a dragon, and it makes it very hard to keep track of where you have or haven't been. Also, the NPCs not appearing meant that you might miss some quests because you didn't see a quest NPC standing on some out-of-the-way ledge somewhere (of which there were many).

Originally Posted by JemyM
Today and yesterday were the two free days I had since the end of summer. I decided to put them into Legend of Grimrock. I am now on level 9 and I can say that I probably didn't pick optimal characters. I have only human characters so I lack the advantage of having species bonuses. I decided out of a whim to go axes with my fighter and there haven't been that many axes around. The assassin's backstab is a bit hard to pull off considering it's worth. My two mages (earth/ice/spellcraft and air/fire/spellcraft) aren't as effective as I would have liked. But at least I have something up the sleeve for every foe I met so far.

You can win this game just with a single character if you dodge to avoid damage, in particular the four square dance. I loved it.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'm in Episode 3 now of The Walking Dead, and I can see why this game has received so much attention. I've never had to make so many difficult choices in a game. Everything you do has consequences, and the story and characters are top notch.

sounds great, I finally bought it the other day. If I can quit playing Journey, I'll give it a try!

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'm in Episode 3 now of The Walking Dead, and I can see why this game has received so much attention. I've never had to make so many difficult choices in a game. Everything you do has consequences, and the story and characters are top notch.

The third episode was probably my favourite.

Looking through the forum I´m quite surprised there´s rather low amount of posts about the game because
a) it´s a good slice of virtual entertainment
b) the accent on and the nature of decision making pushes it towards RPG-y territory, at least in feel

To elaborate a bit on b), in this game the puzzles take a major backseat and serve mostly as means to provide some breathing room to plot progression (in this case I´d say difficult or more elaborate puzzles would likely be detrimental to the intended experience) and QTEs + few crappy "action" sequences are really just atmosphere/intensity enhancers (in the last chapter few QTEs are used in really cool ways btw), it´s defining the pc and how he can affect the other characters via choices what TWD´s gameplay is mostly about.
Basically, it may be sold as an adventure horror game, but its most prominent gameplay feature feels like something taken from a narrative-heavy RPG .
And it works, since the writing in this game is usually really good (the last two chapters are imo less consistent in this regard; the ending is great though).

I'm installing the famous Book Of Unwritten Tales right now - I preferred to buy the collector's edition (both games combined plus stuff), but I just couldn't resist the small price of 5 Euros …

-- “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Following a momentary lapse of sanity, I found myself as a tester of a translation project for "Generation XTH", a japanese dungeon crawler series for the PC. The game's actually pretty fun, feels like a cyberpunk take on oldschool Wizardry / Bard's Tale games* with some modern gameplay elements (crafting/upgrading, team skills, etc) and thankfully there's a functional automap. Also, apparently you can transfer your characters between the games just like Wizardry 1-3 or Bard's Tale 1-3. Oh boy.

I guess I should give TWD another chance. But my impression was that it was a bit like Heavy Rain, where you're basically watching a movie with minimal "immersive" interaction, basically doing trivial functions like opening doors or picking up stuff through an unusually elaborate process to emulate the real movement? Does that change later on?

Because if it doesn't - I'd rather just watch a movie - or catch the whole thing on youtube. I rarely enjoy games where I'm not actually playing.

Still getting used to SWTOR …
Playing as a trooper has pretty much the same appeal as playing as a Heavy in TF … just smile and wave.
Knowing that you can soak quite some damage tends to make you keep your calm in the middle of a fight.